Supreme Court (others) on taping events

Factual Questions
1

Even if Scalia had said before hand that he didn’t want his speech recorded, what right do public officials have to ask the press not to record their speeches? Is it that it was at a private school or function? If the school allows them their, seems like he should have no say so.

(For those not away, this is nn reference to this story:

April 10, 2004 | JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A U.S. marshal said a deputy’s erasure of two journalists’ recordings of a speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was appropriate, given that one of the service’s responsibilities is to provide a traveling Supreme Court justice with security.
http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/04/10/scalia/index.html

2

Scalia wasn’t operating as a public official for his speech. As a condition for giving the speech he requires no recording. This is no different from a musician requiring no recording at a concert. If the school was going to allow it, he wouldn’t have agreed to the speech.

The fact that he’s a public official doesn’t really enter into it. He’s not acting in his position as a Supreme Court Justice.

The taking away of the recording is another issue. Once the reporters were allowed to start recording, I think the marshalls shouldn’t have been allowed to take them. But that’s a separate issue.